This is the city: Los Angeles, California. I work here. I'm an ex-mayor. Los Angeles is a magnet for people from all over the world. Some of them run for public office. Inevitably some of them stray from the golden rule and rule for those that have the gold. That's when I go to work. My name is Yorty. I'm a dead pol.

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Here's another way for the City to get back some of that $50,000 they dole out to every Neighborhood Council - pimp out teenagers to the local advisory panels. Neighborhood Councils who want a teen intern for the summer can pay the City $1500 for 120 hours on an $8.00 an hour teen.

The average burden for an employee who receives no health care and vacation is about 23% for most employers. Typically a temporary agency has a bill rate of about 1.40 of the hourly wage. That means Councils are paying the City approximately an extra $1.50 to $4.00 an hour for the teen workers than if the Councils went the private sector route.

It's great to see the City coming up with creative ways to earn revenue!

13 Comments:

Anonymous said:

(1.) Although I agree that the city government has got "revenue generation" as job #1, I think the intern costs might not be so out of line. Consider DOING the payroll or paying a service to do that, and a neighborhood council is an all-volunteer board; who wants extra administrative chores? Another responsibility might be arranging for some Workers' Compensation coverage and possibly work-site posters about discrimination, wage-laws, and whatever else to discourage easy compliance by a business owner.

This is all in contrast to the day-laborer hiring protocols where the paperwork is pulling out some bills to hand over as the payday.

(2.) What actual work would a neighborhood council have for these interns anyway? This may be simply a make-work deal for a lightly supervised, low-skill demand position for the short-term. If it's a physically oriented task like walking and passing out outreach flyers, you probably could legitimately hire that out more cheaply, etc. And then again, there's a trip to Home Depot for an option, but it could easily be a catastrophically bad choice if done by a NC (but creating days of good blogging material).

The economy of this kind of hiring may depend on the real job duties and expectations of what the worker is going to accomplish.

3. Are there any guidelines that the city attached to this offer of interns for NC's to read and FOLLOW?

Just something to think about.

BTW, could MS's description of the economics in this intern position be restated? I could not connect it all up, so if my comments conflict, sorry, but I'm not as shifty as, let's say, the council members, to use a point of reference, so I could be all wrong.

Some NCs who have paid help use temporary service agencies. Those agencies handle all the payroll, administration, etc. I believe Mayor Sam is saying that is less expensive than the City's rate as described here. I would tend to agree.

SEN. JOHN EDWARDS CAUGHT WITH MISTRESS AND LOVE CHILD!Vice Presidential candidate Sen. John Edwards was caught visiting his mistress and secret love child at 2:40 this morning in a Los Angeles hotel by the NATIONAL ENQUIRER.

The married ex-senator from North Carolina - whose wife Elizabeth continues to battle cancer -- met with his mistress, blonde divorcée Rielle Hunter, at the Beverly Hilton on Monday night, July 21 - and the NATIONAL ENQUIRER was there! He didn't leave until early the next morning.

Rielle had driven to Los Angeles from Santa Barbara with a male friend for the rendezvous with Edwards. The former senator attended a press event Monday afternoon with L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on the topic of how to combat homelessness.